Merry Christmas!

We went to the Mall last week to visit with Santa.

Both kids were so excited to see him from the distance and while waiting in line.

When it was their time to chat with Santa, Bella freaked out and Joshua totally drew a blank.

This was the best out of all the shots that were taken.

Mrs. Claus looks a little goofy, and Bella was NOT happy to be in her lap, but Joshua and Santa look really cute!!

We've lucked out the last few years with our Mall Santas, they've looked quite authentic :)

Ready, Set, PRAY!!!

Someone looked at our house yesterday in PA and wants to "Check it out" again on Saturday!

Everyone PLEASE pray for us, (and them too I guess?!) that we'll be able to sell the house!!!!

THANKS!!

This would be the ultimate Christmas/birthday present EVER :D

Whatta??

Yeah... that was totally my reaction after what happened to me today.

I had never really been a victim of a Crazy Shopping Maniac, but today, I can add that one to the list.

The kids have been sick, so I finally found a pediatrician in the area to have them looked at. (that sounded like I'm taking my car to the mechanic) Anyway... Turns out they both have strep, and double ear infections.

Now, imagine how well and happy they were feeling. After we left the Doc.'s office, I decided to try the wal-mart pharmacy. (Not sure what I was thinking (lack of sleep maybe?))

While we were waiting for the prescription to be filled, the kids and I walked across the isle where the bikes and scooters were on display.
Joshua hoped on a bike and Bella on another waaaaayyyy too big for her.
As I am going down this little area with Bella on the bike, this woman (I won't dare call her a lady) pushed her way into the spot where we had come from.
Mind you, the store was pretty full, with plenty of people around us.
I turned the bike around with Bella, and Josh starts...
"Mom, can I ride this bike? mom, mom, mom, mom..."

I say to the woman, "Excuse us" In a cheery, Christmassy sort of way.

Nothing...

(Josh in the background... MOM, mom, mom, mom, MOOOOOOM, mom, mommyyyyy...)

"Excuse me" I said a little louder...

"I'M TRYING TO SHOP HERE!!! YOU ARE NOT EXCUSED!" (yelling)

Incredulously I said, "I'm sorry I was just trying to get around you to put this bike bac..."

"WELL, GO FIND ANOTHER WAY AROUND, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING GETTING IN PEOPLE'S WAY WITH YOUR KID AND THAT STUPID BIKE!" (as she moved very slowly out of the way)

I was a little shocked... my brain was saying >> DOES NOT COMPUTE<<

"Listen!" I said in my 'tude, yet TRYING to stay calm voice.
"That was completely unnecessary! You need to chill out OK!"
"YOU LITTLE B#$@%!!" and some other off color comments that were totally inappropriate for her to be saying in front of my children or anyone for that matter.

This woman just flipped.

"That was absolutely unnecessary! You better keep on movin..."

AND SHE PUSHES HER SHOPPING CART INTO ME!!

It took every fiber of my being to contain myself and not go absolutely Ghetto on that woman!

This is when I had one of those out of body experiences, where time froze and I got to run the whole scenario in my head again in total disbelief.

The funny part is that all I could think of was, "your kids are here, don't do anything or say anything stupid", it's Christmas time... blow this off, What Would Jesus Do??"

I think too in her mind she was thinking... "Whatta heck did I just do? I better get the heck outta here!!"

I Roared back at her "Whatta Hell do you think you're doing? You better..."

She started to waddle off quickly, and as if to take one last stab at me, she turned around and called me a B*%$# again.

Except this time, what she saw was a little birdie doing a flip. She was so shocked at how close I got to her face with the bird, that I thought my finger would go up her nose.

She gave me an appalled kind of look and waddled away quickly.

I stood there for a second thinking. "Gosh, Jesus would never do that!"

I was reawakened by a little voice in the distance saying... "Mom, mom, mom, mom, MOMMMMEEEEE, are you listening to me? Mommy!"

I cannot emphasize how much I hated walmart before.
This incident just totally sealed the deal for me.

I will NEVER go back again...

...well to that location at least ;D

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...

...And the kids are absolutely loving it!

This entire past week, Joshua and Bella were begging for a tree. Dwight and I were quite torn because we're very much real tree people. Only thing is, we really didn't want to deal with the mess that it could make in the apartment (The pine needles, watering it, spilling the water on the carpet), but we also didn't want to spend too much money on a FAKE tree... 'cause really in this case you get what you pay for!!

So to appease the little ones, we set out to find the perfect tree.

At first we looked at real trees, but the local vendors only seemed to have the humongo ones...

It was either us or the tree in the apartment.

So, we looked for fake ones and GASPED at the prices, but decided to keep on looking anyway...

Finally we stopped at Lowe's for a light bulb replacement, and ended up in the "holiday" section... The kids made a bee line to a really cute pre-lit tree with colorful lights.
They liked it so much, we took a few pictures by the tree expecting to buy it.

I know what you're thinking, and what I'm sure all the people at Lowe's were thinking too...

WHY IN THE WORLD take a picture of us buying a tree at Lowe's??

Allow me to explain... In the past we always bought real trees and had a lot of fun doing so.
We would go to the tree farm, roast hot dogs or smores on a bonfire, drink hot chocolate, run around (tripping on stumps), and having a lot of fun trying to find "the perfect tree." We always took pictures... Always.
So,even though we were breaking the tradition, at least I would get some cute pictures.

Or so I thought...





After all the trouble of trying to get a decent picture by the tree...

WE BOUGHT A DIFFERENT ONE :-S

Later we went looking at lots where Josh found the "Ultimate Stick"
he he he :)

Thanksgiving 2008

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving was Excellent this year. I thought I would have to cook, but only ended up helping a little here and there. I mostly did the dishes. I have a husband that was more than willing to get down and dirty in the kitchen. I have to say, the turkey turned out really good and so did everything else. Our very first Thanksgiving alone was a success!!

The Bird before...
During...
Dinner is ready!!
We love the timer on the camera.
Bella was thankful for bread.(she is her mother's daughter!) That is all she ate pretty much.
Joshua was thankful for our family and Jesus Christ.
Dwight was thankful for the Pittsburgh Steelers :) jk.
*Notice Bella's lovely center piece (A small branch with some crispy leaves she found on our walk to the bus stop, I stuck it into an empty Izze bottle and tied an upside-down bow... Voila!)
Yeah... I was totally ready for a nap. I had a little fake booze buzz!
Bad case of Tryptophan! He will be mad I posted this one...LOL :)
Friday, Lake Gaston, NC

On black Friday, which is usually my day to shop shop shop, I slept slept slept. I don't know about you, but I just don't find it to be any fun to shop when I don't have any money to spend :-S
Dwight went out for a gift for Josh and was successful. He was satisfied.

Later we joined our friends from PA at their family reunion at Lake Gaston and spent the rest of the day together. It was so fun! The kids got to fish (we had a couple of false alarms) but caught no fish, and Joshua got to go on a boat ride with his buddy Addison. They were so happy to see each other again.



Joshua and Addison
Adam & Dale.
FUN, cool people.
Off they went
Half-way into the ride Joshua asked "How long is this going to take? I miss my mom" Awwww :)
Happy to be back.
Dale, Bella and I
Josh and Bella loved roasting marshmallows with Daddy.


Bella really enjoyed the smores, Joshua not so much... weird kid!


Saturday, Thanksgiving part II at my sister Giselle's
We feel so lucky to have moved and still have some family near by. Giselle was gracious enough to have us over and prepared a delicious dinner for us.
My contribution... rice.
We had a great evening chatting, eating and watching the kids play. Josh & Daysean at some point went next door to the neighbor kid's house, so Bella and Brandon had nothing better to do than to tear up the place.


Isabella is totally responsible for the bruises on this poor kid's head.

Thanksgiving was wonderful and I'm truly blessed to have such a wonderful family and such great friends.
I am so thankful for the gospel and it humbles me to know how lucky I am to have it in my life.
I am thankful for a country that allows us to worship whatever way we see fit, and for the freedom we enjoy here.
I am thankful for everything else that I may have forgotten to mention :)

Tender Mercy

This is not one of those totally cute posts... It's very long too ;)

Today was a very emotional day for me.

It started with me crying, then smiling, then crying because of sadness, then crying again because I was humbled.

For most of you who know me... I am an open book. I wear my emotions on my sleeves and what you see is what you get.

This post is about a part of me that struggles, but through with the amazing love of the Savior and his grace, my faith was increased.

Since I've been in Chapel Hill, I decide to make a better effort in things of the gospel... Not necessarily jumping in head-first, but easing my way in with more consistent FHEs, personal prayer (there is nothing like trying to sell a house in this market to motivate someone to pray pray pray) reading scriptures etc... etc...

Looking back, somehow I managed to dodge the TALK bullet for a long, long time.
Yeah, I would bear my testimony in RS, but it's been years since the last time I actually had a large audience older than 11 years old.

So a couple of weeks ago a member of the Bishopric came by our apartment to formally welcome our family to the ward. Inevitably I was given a calling in primary and asked to speak. The topic I was assigned was "The healing power of the gospel" Easy right? That's what I thought. Without any hesitation I said "Yes and yes" and so the week started. I had two weeks to prepare this talk. The first week, let's just say I thought about it... um... a lot.

This past week, I started to read talks and jot down some notes. I knew that I didn't want to get up there and talk about doom and gloom, and tell a wonderful story about someone else's experience where they were healed by the power of the gospel. (Honestly, I never really care too much for talks that tell too many personal experiences... they lose me... I always end up visiting La-la land when that happens)

By Thursday I started to get butterflies, and got strangely nervous. The weird part about it is that it seemed like I had a bad case of Adult ADD or something. Every time I thought I was going to get to my talk I ended up NOT for whatever reason.

Friday, I finally sat down and wrote some things down, but something was lacking... (The spirit maybe?) I prayed and typed and prayed and typed, but everything I wrote sounded so silly. I thought about my audience, and went into a panic.... A lot of very well educated people, people that know a whole lot more than I about things like this.

Anyway, Saturday night come around and here I am still struggling to get past the first page.
Dwight came to the rescue a couple of times; giving me ideas and ways I could approach the subject...

At 1 in the morning I lost it.

I freaked out.

"I can't give this talk!!". To me it seemed like such a monumental task that all I wanted was to have a terrible case of diarrhea and puke so I didn’t have to go to church the next morning.
I cried so much I think I may have freaked out Dwight a little. :S

Anyway, I was exhausted, but I knew I had to do it. There was no diarrhea in the horizon to save me.
I prayed and prayed and prayed.
I typed and typed.
I finally went to bed at 3.

A few hours later I got up, showered, and got into my talk again.
Church starts at 11. I finished my talk at 10. I got the kids ready in record time and was at church by 10:45.
I still wasn't feeling like my talk was any good.
I prayed and prayed and prayed....
Finally I gave my talk.

It was a BLURRRRRRRR....

At the end of the meeting something very unusual happened. A lady that was visiting our ward came by and said "I really enjoyed your talk..." (That’s not that unusual, I know... but just wait...)
"... I was taking notes and..." (WHATTA????? That has never happened to me(that I know of)... NOTES????)
She asked me for the name of the talk that I referenced by Elder Scott about the power of faith in times of uncertainty. (HELLO!) I told her I would email the link to her.

I almost removed that quote. It was one of the parts that I thought didn't really fit, but you know... I needed to fill in those10-12 minutes so...

That did put a smile on my face. I thought to myself... "Hey, maybe it wasn't all that bad."

I thanked my Heavenly Father.
I also emailed the lady
Later on, at home, some things came up and reality quickly set in. I cried again.

But the lord wasn't done with me yet.

I decided to check my email, and this is what I found...

Dear Aline, it is interesting how the Lord answers our prayers. I have a daughter that has a trial at this time. My husband and I have been praying, temple roll ect. for her. I know the scriptures teach that as we serve we bless the lives of others. Last night my husband and I were on the internet choosing what ward meeting to attend. When I heard you speak I knew we picked the right one. Today you blessed my life and hopefully hers with your spirit filled talk. Thank you, K

I cried again.

uh...

Talk

I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting next Sunday. I knew it was coming... perks of being new in the ward I guess.

My Topic is The Healing Power of the Gospel.

I like it, but i think it is a little vague and it can be taken in a few different directions.

I sort of liked the idea of maybe adding a little Thanksgiving twist, since it is the Sunday before, but not sure yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Good talks or experiences that might help me out here a little??

Heaven on Earth

Last night the kids and I had the chance to visit the Raleigh Temple with my dear friend Karen.

Karen and I go WAYYYYYY back.

She was in the YW's presidency when I was a Mia Maid or Laurel in NJ, and we've been great friends ever since.

Karen was also my Matron of Honor.

She has always been a great example to me, and I love her for it.

One of the best examples she has set for me is Temple attendance. If Karen ever happens to be M.I.A, then we know she must be at the Temple.

Another reason I appreciate Karen is because she is such a great listener. I know that is one of her gifts. She gives you all of her attention, even if you have the silliest thing to say. (Which I often do :)

I've never lived this close to a temple before. I must admit I was shocked by the size and location of this temple (DC is still #1 in my heart), but it was as beautiful as any other temple and the peaceful feeling was the same.

So much is going on in our lives, and it was great to just "drop by" the Temple. It gave me that boost I needed to handle whatever comes our way. No other place can do that. It truly is like Heaven on Earth.Joshua took this picture, I think he did pretty good :)

Bella was asleep in the van :)

The Stick

Recently the stick was entered into the Toy Hall of Fame.
Here are some of the reasons why:

I couldn't resist adding this picture of Bella... She was miffed the big kids didn't want to play with her. She told me, "I'm having a bad day, those girls won't talk to me!"